Brandon Minute: Issue 125

Brandon Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Brandon politics

📅 This Week In Brandon: 📅

• Today marks a special milestone for Brandon Minute: this is our 125th issue! For 125 weeks, we’ve been keeping an eye on the news, agendas, policies, and decisions coming out of City Hall so you can stay informed about what’s happening without having to spend hours following it all yourself. We’re grateful to everyone who reads Brandon Minute, shares it with a friend, and takes the time to respond - your support helps make this work possible. Brandon Minute is funded entirely by readers like you, so if you find these updates valuable, please consider making a donation to help us keep watching what’s happening at Council and bringing it to your inbox every week.
  
  
• There will be a City Council meeting tonight at 7:00 pm in Council Chambers at City Hall, Council's first sitting since July 27th. Two by-laws are due for second and third reading that would rezone undeveloped agricultural land on 34th Street and approve subdivisions creating 89 new residential lots on the city's western edge. One application, from Waverly Developments at 1900 34th Street, would create 43 lots and new public roads in the Brookwood South neighbourhood. The other, from VBJ Developments on behalf of Bellafield Holdings at 1955 34th Street, would create 46 lots, public roads and a public reserve in the Bellafield neighbourhood. Both went to a public hearing before the Brandon Planning Commission on August 5th, which recommended Council approve them, and planning staff reported receiving no representations for or against either application. Both approvals would require the developers to enter into development agreements with the City before the subdivisions can be registered.
  
  
• Also on tonight's agenda, Ward 8 Councillor Jason Splett will bring a resolution calling on the City to negotiate a long-term agreement with the Province over maintaining provincial roads that run through Brandon. The Province currently pays the City to mow boulevards along routes including 18th Street, parts of First Street, Richmond Avenue and Victoria Avenue, and the Trans-Canada Highway, but Splett says the arrangement is settled late each year. He said this year's agreement was ratified so late that City crews could not start mowing provincial boulevards until the end of June, leaving Administration fielding complaints about work that is not the City's responsibility. A deal running three to five years, he argues, would let the City plan staffing and equipment, and could be extended to snow clearing and pothole repair on provincial roads. City Manager Dave Wardrop said a longer-term agreement would help with budgeting and resource planning, and that the City is open to discussing taking on the additional work. A provincial spokesperson said the government looks forward to further discussions once the plan is formally introduced.
  
  
• Twenty candidates have now registered for Brandon's October municipal election, with more than a month to go before registration closes on September 22nd. Six of the ten wards have only one registered candidate, while five people are running in Ward 2 to replace Kris Desjarlais, who is not seeking re-election. Incumbent Mayor Jeff Fawcett and former Brandon East MLA and Councillor Len Isleifson remain the only two candidates for mayor. Ward 10 candidate Mitesh Patel says he wants Council to revisit a recommendation from Administration in March to cut Council from eleven members to nine and reduce the number of wards from ten to four, arguing there is almost no debate at the Council table. Council voted those changes down that month but approved a separate recommendation from the same report raising the base salary for Councillors by more than $5,000 and the mayor's by $14,000, effective next year. Ward 2 candidate Sonikile Tembo, the City's principal planner, has taken leave from her job to run and says she would resign it if elected.
  
  
• The Manitoba government held a public listening session at Brandon University on August 10th to gather views on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and the protection of personal data, drawing about 20 people. Innovation and New Technology Minister Mike Moroz said the session was part of drafting regulations under the province's Public Sector Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity Governance Act, which took effect in June. Participants raised concerns about security against cyber criminals, being tracked or monitored, and limiting the role of AI in their lives, and some said they would prefer no data collection or tracking at all. Others argued companies should only be allowed to collect the minimum data possible. Moroz said a "right to be forgotten" is a common request, though he cautioned that keeping data can matter in areas such as health care. Asked whether using AI to speed up government work would cost public sector jobs, Moroz said decisions would always be human-driven and that staff would be redeployed elsewhere. 

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